Congratulations! You’ve expanded your business and opened a new office or hired remote workers in a different country or state. Whether you’ve hired just one global employee, or a whole new team, entering a new market signals a huge step forward in the growth of your business. In fact, according to research by Payoneer, 41 percent of surveyed SMBs cite “researching additional geographic markets to enter” as their most important business priority.
While a sign of growth and success, geographical expansion also brings many challenges, especially for a company that hasn’t needed to support global employees until now.
Global workforce management requires a change in mindset, processes, and tools—and some investment in time and money—to succeed. So, let’s explore five ways to help you pivot to a new way of working and lead your global teams to success.
1. Create a consistent employee experience
You’ve transitioned from having a single office location to a company with people working from multiple locations. Just as you’d expect the same customer experience in your favorite retail outlet no matter which location you visit, this also holds true for your company. It’s essential that you provide your people with a global and consistent employee experience in each of your sites. Some ways to get started include:
- Office decor. Invest in branding for each office location. Use your logo and company colors to ensure a consistent look and feel and help your people develop a personal connection to their workplace.
- Company perks. Offer your people similar perks, whether it’s snacks in the office, a free gym membership, or the opportunity to work hybrid, ensuring an equitable and consistent company culture.
- Benefits. Considering local regulations and norms, offer all team members similar or equal benefits, from health insurance and parental leave to the number of vacation days.
- Employee lifecycle processes. Build consistent recruitment, hiring, and onboarding processes, ensuring that your people on all sites have a similar experience that represents your company.
<<Going global? Discover how we support our global workforce using Bob. Read the guide.>>
2. Establish clear and frequent communication
Now that you have people working from multiple locations and different time zones, calling impromptu meetings to make company announcements is a thing of the past.
Create a strategy for effective communication for global teams by scheduling regular all-hands meetings from your leadership to provide your people with important company announcements. Use a video conferencing tool so that everyone can attend, and choose a time of day that’s convenient for all.
Aside from formal meetings from the C-Suite, you’ll also need a way to communicate with your people about day-to-day updates. Decide whether you want to communicate via email, a social intranet, or using HR tech such as an HCM.
You’ll also want to consider providing a way for your people to communicate with you. Running surveys is an effective way to gain feedback. You can run pulse surveys for quick feedback on a specific topic and more comprehensive surveys, such as employee lifecycle feedback surveys and engagement surveys, to gauge overall employee sentiment.
3. Build a tech stack for managing a global team
A modern organization uses a wide range of tools for managing different processes. As your company grows and adds people working on other sites and in different time zones, you’ll need to review your current tech stack to ensure it still fulfills your needs. While you probably won’t need all of them immediately, some tools you might want to consider investing in include:
- Collaboration tools: While email has been the traditional way to communicate for the last two decades, in the modern digital age, collaboration tools such as Slack and MS Teams have become essential for streamlined communications, especially for companies with people working from multiple sites and remotely.
- Project management software: As your SMB scales, you may want to consider using a project management tool to manage all your tasks and projects. There are many different options available, and your company should do some research to find the best fit according to features and price. Some well-known names include Jira, Asana, Trello, and Monday.com.
- Video conferencing software: With your teams distributed globally, you’ll need to provide a way for your people to meet virtually. The best-known tool is Zoom, but additional tools, such as Google Meet and Webex, offer similar capabilities. You can also use Slack and MS Teams for smaller group calls.
- Documentation and storage software: A multi-national company needs a centralized and easily accessible system for storing company documents, such as the company code of conduct, travel policy, and health and safety policies. Examples include Google Suite, OneDrive, and Notion.
- HR tech: Invest in a centralized end-to-end system to manage your HR-related processes, from recruitment to offboarding. An HCM stores all your people data, providing insights on tenure, salaries, attendance, performance, and more, so you can ditch the spreadsheets and enjoy a single source of truth for all things HR.
Important note! Before investing in new tech tools, make sure that they integrate seamlessly with each other for ease of use and to avoid information silos and double entry.
<<Read how HiBob uses Bob to support our global workforce. Click here.>>
4. Train your managers to lead global teams
Once you start hiring people from different countries, your managers must modify their management styles to lead remote and global teams.
Clear communication is key. Whether working from near or far, each team member needs to be adequately briefed on their tasks, receive constructive feedback, and feel that they are an integral part of the team.
Consider creating best practice guides for your team leads to help them adjust to a new way of working. A good way to get started is by scheduling regular one-on-one meetings with each team member. Conduct meetings in person for those working locally and use video conferencing software for team members who are far away.
Forming relationships with people who aren’t sitting together in the same office can be challenging, so managers should use these meetings to get to know each team member on a more personal level in addition to talking about work.
Other points to consider when managing global teams are language barriers from team members who don’t have English as their first language and “Zoom fatigue.” Managers can overcome this by communicating clearly and using visual aids such as slides to keep people’s attention and enable them to review again at their leisure.
<<See how HiBob uses Bob to support our global workforce. Read the guide.>>
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5. Create a company culture that embraces cultural diversity
The more global your SMB, the more diverse your workforce will likely be. People from different countries may have different cultural norms, backgrounds, and religions that may impact the way they work. When these differences aren’t considered, people can feel excluded.
As your company grows, take the time to reflect on the type of company culture you want to build and how you’ll achieve it. Make it official with a company code of conduct and values that clearly state your company’s ethos and the behavior you expect from your people.
Building culture in global companies can be challenging, especially if your HR team sits on just one of your sites. As part of your global expansion, consider hiring additional HR leaders in each location to ensure a consistent culture across your company.
Most importantly, your people will look to your leaders to set the right example regarding company culture. Good management must always start at the top.
Ready, set, go global!
Going global is a huge step for SMBs and should be accompanied by a solid plan that considers all the fine details and puts your people first. Get set for success by creating a consistent experience for all your people near and far, establishing clear and frequent communication channels, investing in the right technological tools, shifting your management techniques, and building an inclusive company culture.
For more inspiration, read our guide about how we use Bob to support our global workforce. HiBob has scaled from an SMB to a company of over 1,000 people working from seven sites and remotely. Bob is instrumental for building a unified company culture, automating and localizing employee lifecycle management processes, managing working hours and time off across geographies, and more.
